


Fearless

by Jonathan_Look



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Garreg Mach Monastery (Fire Emblem)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:20:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25977349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jonathan_Look/pseuds/Jonathan_Look
Summary: An Azure Moon short story/one-off that serves as an AU epilogue idea. After he fails to find redemption before the fatal siege of Enbarr, revenge proves not to be enough for the frail and deteriorating mind of Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd. Grappling with trauma and addiction, he spirals further between the lines of life and death as his mentor and his peers gather at the monastery in one final desperate bid to save their King from his greatest fear: himself. Inspired by the ending of a film from the early 1990's, and of course by one of the best video games I have played in a long time.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Blue Lions Students, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	Fearless

**FEARLESS**

an adaptation written by Jonathan Look.

inspired by a motion picture released in 1993, and a video game released in 2019.

* * *

_"How long have I waited? How long have we been here, like this?"_

He remembered the words, and he felt the blade enter his shoulder all over again. The now-mending wound stung with such sudden ferocity at the memory that he had to take another urgent sip to stifle the voices, that languid noise which haunted him even now.

He could still see her eyes, those burning pools of brightness. She was always bright, wasn't she? Even when the light had long left them behind, those eyes were mocking him. They joined the rogue's gallery of looming specters and mocked him even now as he lay there in the darkness, the effects of the alcohol beginning to take place. What a fool he was, to have ever shown vulnerability. For the first time in what felt like years he found the urge to laugh stirring from within, and he could not suppress its growth; a large, hollow sound, inhuman and dry, was what escaped from his throat and reverberated across the various pillars of the cathedral and their etchings and scars before it too died out and disappeared. It was gone as quickly as it had come, and he was glad to be rid of it in the lingering silence that once more followed and proceeded to cushion him.

Dimitri sat up, a fresh wave of dizziness settling in. He brushed it off with the dust and pebbles that had fermented his coat, evidence of his tenure lying prone. His hand searched the darkness and found itself around the neck of the bottle. News of the victory had surely reached their allies in Derdriu by now, but he was in no mood to celebrate. There was nobody left in his court to share the celebration with: Rodrigue Fraldarius was long gone, his dying words meaningless against the burgeoning weight on his shoulders, and without Dedue Molinaro by his side the crown felt quite heavy on Dimitri's head indeed. He had no family and no vassal. The entire continent of Fódlan was his to rule alone, and he wanted nothing to do with it. He did his part. His job was over.

_"El..."_

It was nothing.

_The blade clattered onto the floor of the vacant hall, and it stayed there._

He brought the bottle to his lips, that familiar sensation soothing his insides but for a brief moment. The bright eyes flickered and disappeared, but something else came to take their place. It was scorn. Back already, having faced him not that long ago, having faced him everywhere... this feeling, a frequent and familiar visitor, crept up his spine and left a vivid chill all the way up to the back of his neck where the little hairs sprung up, spiteful soldiers standing at attention and awaiting their terrible orders. He wanted to scream at the scorn, he wanted to beat it down and tear it apart with his own hands, but he had tried that before and it didn't work. Instead he felt it pounding down around him in all directions, the pressure tightening on his skull as he tilted his head back and finished off whatever remained inside the bottle. He had been sampling some kind of sugary liqueur from Duscur, but by now the taste was merely a side-effect of the intended result.

Felix had taken his leave from the monastery, shortly after the siege of Enbarr had ended. He was able to thank Dimitri for his service in finally reuniting the Kingdom, but when the subject came to his father he fell pointedly silent. The circumstances of Lord Rodrigue's death hung poorly upon them both, as the man had given his life for an undesired crown and they both knew it, and so Felix had departed from Adrestian territory ahead of the royal caravan with the intention of assisting Catherine and the other church knights in locating Lady Rhea and the citizens of Garreg Mach who were still lost, or at the very least helping spread the good word that the war was over before getting some much-needed rest, but by the time Dimitri and their primary battalions had returned he was gone and his dormitory room had been cleaned out. Dimitri then had to explain to those who had remained behind at the monastery during the siege why Dedue had not also returned with them.

His summary of the events was mercifully short, although his colleagues were shocked by an apparent lack of subtlety in the report.

_She was holding him as he wept. A few feet away, he could still make out the limp form of Edelgard. Blood was pooling at the edge of the throne._

It was likely for the best. Felix still had a chance. He was better off.

Another urge came to Dimitri now, and it was a simple one: he needed more drink. He fought the amassing confusion and slowly braced himself to stand up. That Duscur swill was getting him on well enough, but he needed something with more potency. Surely the church still had something hiding in its cellars, some treasure waiting for him. Perhaps one of the fine wines he had witnessed Rhea pouring during one of her rare visits to the dining hall staff, during better days.

_He sat side-by-side with Dedue, sipping tea. It was before the monastery fell, and a particularly beautiful day to be outside. Neither of them had their scars yet. He made some sleight-of-hand comment that was successful in making Dedue chuckle. He had broken the handle of his teacup on accident and was laughing, too._

Better days...

Using his arms, he pushed himself up onto his knees. His head throbbed. How long had he been in here? The candlesticks were all blown out, but there was some moonlight shining through the cracks to guide him. The significant portions of the ceiling that were still missing proved to be useful after all. He thought he heard a noise at the edge of the cathedral hall, but paid it no mind. He had the strength to move his legs forward and begin balancing on the heels of his feet instead of his kneecaps, but he needed to cling onto one of the nearby pews for support. He was exhausted. Deliriously, another laugh escaped his lips. What a sight to behold, the ruler of Fódlan must be at this moment!

As he found the will to stand fully upright, another morbid manifestation visited him.

_"The fire in the sky..."_

He froze, momentarily.

It wasn't really there that night, nor was it present in the capital during their grand siege, for he hadn't seen it in over five years. But a picture of it flashed across his eyes internally and he felt something burning to life inside of his chest. It was a feeling he hadn't known in all of that time, and he could not immediately recount it. Was it his fear? Was it hate of a thing, or a person? Did it truly belong to him or was it something in between? For all of the emotions he allowed himself to feel, of which there were already quite little, it was the only feeling he wasn't ever quite sure about, and so he must have near-successfully buried it alongside his former self however many days or months ago. Yet here it was again to remind him of his demons. He remembered seeing this fire, spreading in the skies above Garreg Mach. On the day that Edelgard led the Empire to them...

_He was finally able to look up at her. His eye met the Professor's. "Is it finally gone?"_

_But she had been unable to answer the question._

His body caught an unruly footing, and he stumbled. Something clamored beneath him and slipped away; a loud clattering followed. It appeared that he had found what he was looking for, but it was not convinced of his company. The mysterious new bottle came to a halt on the cathedral ground somewhere ahead of him. "Shit." He breathed in, but he still felt suffocated. Had he raided the cellars already?

"Your Highness?"

He flinched at the sound, which he knew well. "Don't call me that," he muttered instinctively.

He dared not turn. He took a cautious step forward. Further into the darkness. He couldn't face her, not now. He could sense his next relief ahead of him, speaking the language of the sensitive glassware that embraced the stone flooring it lay upon. A soft _clink._ A summons. He couldn't ignore it now that he had so expertly detected it. If he did, he would surely sabotage himself.

He much preferred it this way. He only needed to quiet the shakes. Maybe the voices, too.

His Professor approached him with the same amount of dedicated caution, a woman with delicate features but resolute in mind. Her eyes, containing a unique brightness of their own, displayed a sadness that was reserved for the loss of an item most dear. Her gaze fell upon him in the shadows of the ruined cathedral, and it was a familiar sight: the husk of a man left to rot within the withered shell of a building. She must have known it wise not to refer to the memory it evoked by name, because she did not mention it.

"Everyone is in the reception hall. They're waiting for you."

Dimitri took another stagnant step forward. She was always short with her words, the Professor, almost stubbornly so. "What do they want?"

"They wish to see their King."

"I am not a king. Not anymore." Another step.

"That is not just for you to decide."

Dimitri's path brought him directly before the mysterious new bottle. He couldn't see a label on it, but it wouldn't have mattered if there was one. He leaned forward, preparing to reach for it. Every move was the delicate process of an ailing machine. The Duscur liqueur was perhaps more potent than he realized, a fascinating lubricant overall. "I care not for what they want," he slurred. He could feel his voice raising in tone. He felt the rage stewing to a boil inside of him. He chose to deplete this newfound energy by grabbing the bottle and straightening himself out for a closer inspection. So there was a label. Whisky. "Fódlan deserves a true king, not a monster. They don't know what they want. They don't understand."

The Professor seemed not to react to this observation. "I was hoping to see you, too."

Dimitri's back was still turned, and perhaps it was also for the best that he could not see the Professor's face then. Nevertheless, he felt a twitch in his only remaining eye that he refused to otherwise acknowledge. He scratched at the neck of the bottle to undo the seal that was keeping it shut and gradually peeled it off. Using his teeth he uncorked the bottle with a loud, wet _pop_. Under any other circumstances, it would have been a satisfying sound.

He could muster the courage to say, "I hope it is not a decision you will come to regret. Helping me. You deserved better, too."

More sounds came. More pitterings from beyond the door. He could not bear it. He took a swig. The liquid was dark, brown, and it stung. It would do the job.

Another voice came.

"Professor?" It was Ingrid. The heir to House Galatea now approached -- it felt better to Dimitri to refer to them by their territorial value, rather than by any human qualities that would compromise him. "Have you seen Dimitri? Felix has gone. I don't know if he..."

_He saw her as she stared up at the statue bearing Glenn's name. It looked just like him and she had no words. He didn't either, but he had held her then. He was able to face her then._

Her voice quavered as her eyes laid themselves upon him, hunchbacked and broken there in the heart of their old stomping grounds, and it deeply unsettled her how quickly the acceptance of this encounter came to her. Like the Professor, it wasn't a picture she wanted to see, but she had recently come to terms with the fact that she had been exposed to it for as long as she could remember and that it was only getting worse.

Ingrid gave Dimitri the dignity of being the next one to speak, when he was ready.

"Come to see me off?" he asked, his back still turned. He took another burning sip.

Ingrid took in a determined air. "Turn around."

Dimitri gave out a grim scoff as he lowered the bottle, still reacting to the sting of its contents as it numbed the roof of his mouth. The vibrations of Ingrid's ensuing shouts washed over him like the ocean breeze.

"TURN AROUND! If you're going to do this, you need to look at me! You need to look me in the eye and tell me this is what you really want!"

When Dimitri failed to respond to this, she continued. Her face flushed as she hurled long-waiting words at the spiteful creature before her. "Felix is gone. But you probably know that already. He couldn't stand what you've become, even after all this. He was right about you, wasn't he? Revenge wasn't enough." She took a distressed step, treading lightly. "I can't stand this either. I don't know who you are anymore. It's like you died with this place all those years ago! Why, Dimitri? Why did you save us if you can't even stand to look at us?"

He felt the bubbling anger take control, seizing his legs and compelling him to respond to being verbally tackled like this. Like the heavy pillars of stone that surrounded him, he felt unmovable, yet these fragile splinters of flesh and bone that carried him kept his balance squarely as he turned to finally meet this dreaded confrontation. The Professor stood some few feet away, shielding the influence of her eyes from him by looking down. But Ingrid was closer, and stepping forward still. He gazed upon her defiance with a bloodshot eye as she crossed down the aisles of broken benches.

Ingrid stopped with a gasp. In the time between their last meeting when he had simply announced Dedue's passing to the others and then left, Dimitri had done some considerable damage to his rigid complexion. He looked terribly more gaunt than usual as he let Ingrid behold him there, in the adjusting darkness of the labyrinthine cathedral and its alleys.

"Are you satisfied?" Dimitri asked, an honest enough question even though it seethed with the kind of provocation normally reserved for the vernacular of an immature schoolboy.

He caught movement in his peripheral and redirected his line of sight toward the other end of the grand hall. More had begun entering the cathedral through its giant front doors that led to the rest of the monastery. Briefly Dimitri imagined these faceless shapes in the effort they must have made in crossing the bridge, in order to get here in time. What a futile gesture.

He made out Sylvain at the head of the pack. What preconceived arrogance that had previously exuded from this knight was also a ghost of the past, war having long hardened his handsome features.

"Ingrid?" he called out. "You guys, she's over here! Did you find...?"

"How many more of you are there?!" snapped Dimitri, with an unusually sharp bite for how belligerent he was becoming. "How much more agony must I endure?!"

Behind Sylvain, he saw Ashe and Marianne make themselves present. His heart dropped. Two more reminders.

_He was standing between the two of them as they listened to a somber eulogy. It was raining. Ashe had stifled himself from openly weeping by stuffing his mouth with a closed fist, and for once Dimitri could not fight the urge to reach out and touch his arm._

_It was nearly mid-day and he was already delirious from emptying his hip flask before the service. He forced his eye shut so that he didn't have to see, but he could still hear Ingrid sobbing nearby. In front of them the casket gave off a faint glow in the afternoon gloom, a flag bearing the markings of Brigid draped over it._

He composed himself by taking another swift drink. What did any of this progress mean if it all came hurtling toward the same end?

"You're in agony, huh?" Sylvain was saying. His tone had changed substantially. "Imagine that. You're still wearing the same clothes you killed Edelgard in, you know. You got what you wanted, so cheer up."

"Don't," Ashe pleaded with him, but Sylvain either didn't hear this or he ignored it.

"It's time to pull your head out of your ass and lead your fucking Kingdom," he continued loudly. "We fought back against the Empire for you. We united all of Fódlan, for you."

Dimitri teetered slightly. An accompanying thought followed the movement, one that was returning from before he had company: "Heavy is the head that wears the crown." He was glad to say it aloud, to be projecting these empty anecdotes into the cold universe for all to hear, even though their meaning added to the weight upon his shoulders. He had to look down to check his footing, but this turned out to be a mistake. He blinked furiously and gave his eye time to refocus. His ears began to ache from all the recent intruding noise.

"I've made it no secret," he told Sylvain, and the rest of the Blue Lions there, grazing them all in his eyesight with one clumsily-made sweep of the head. The mop of disorderly hair dangling over his face also threatened to take away his balance, so he held his entire body in a slightly off-kilter fashion. "I don't want the crown. I don't want the Kingdom. I don't want any of you here. And this is all beside the fact that none of you want me, so what else is there to talk about?" He saw flecks of spit let loose. He felt the confidence returning, he felt power in grating them with his voice. It felt good to open the belly of the beast when his usual impulse was to continue stuffing it. He felt relief. "None of you want me here, so just say it!"

_He stumbled out into the courtyard, polishing off a bottle of brandy he found inside a cabinet in the knights hall. He had lost his eye days ago and nothing was helping with the pain. It was either late evening or early morning, and he sat down in front of the gazebo. Gilbert appeared and seemed to hover in front of him. He held up the bottle, its contents swishing freely. "Have a drink?" he offered. Gilbert made no reply and seemed not to notice him at all. He left the monastery behind that night._

"That's not true," whimpered Marianne. "You're the reason I was welcomed back here, when I had nowhere else to go. Ferdinand, too. The guards could have turned us away at the gate, but you asked them to let us in. You asked us to stay, and we stayed because we wanted to. We're still here with you, Dimitri."

"You taught us how to respect other people," Ingrid asserted, capturing his attention. "I learned how to trust again. I learned how to forgive. Life is too short. And we've lost so many along the way..."

He felt something else stirring alongside this bombardment of sentimentality, and rushed to stifle it with more of his bottled solution. Ingrid flinched, but she did not look away. He knew exactly what point she was circling toward and silently screamed for her to get on with it, to puncture him with it, for he would not give her the satisfaction of coaxing it out through his own voice.

"This isn't what Dedue would have wanted," she said.

Memories came rushing back.

_he looked across the cityscape of Enbarr, the first clear conscience he had known in some time distinctly creeping upon him, harboring the realities of his position in a festering still as Dedue promised to stand by his side until the very end, just as he always had, yet he couldn't find the strength to say anything back_

He thought he was prepared for it, but he wasn't. It was a thunderbolt.

"Don't you dare speak his name," Dimitri's voice cracked. The confidence was gone. The relief was gone. It was back to feeling what he always felt, adding onto his mountain of turmoil several fresh entries.

"He died for you today," said Sylvain, his own temperament rising dangerously, "and the least you can do is talk about it with your friends for more than a minute!"

"You've suffered." Ingrid's eyes were welling up. "We've suffered, too. You used to give us so much hope. We miss you. We..."

Sylvain was there when she could continue no further, and her face disappeared into him; it seemed he could no longer bear it either, as he too fell silent. It was Ashe's turn to take a timid step forward, his own eyes speaking volumes.

"You saved my life..." he stammered. "Let me save yours. Please, come with us."

_the arrow stuck out of him like a jagged taunt, beckoning him as he swam desperately forward to catch it, unleashing a soft volley of blood as the waters rose_

"No," Dimitri moaned. "No, no, no..."

He couldn't hear this, this wasn't part of his plan. The bottle throbbed hot in his hand.

"Let's just get out of here, okay?" came Ashe's voice again, drifting. "Let's go to the infirmary..."

_he struggled to stand though the nausea, a grave marked with the crest of House Dominic glaring at him through a fragmented tombstone that jutted out of the ground, and he was only halfway through his fumbled apology before he realized that Mercedes was watching him and he had to quickly_

"Don't touch me!" the shout unlodged itself from his throat just as he swatted away at the incoming limb, and Ashe withdrew the hand with a hurt constitution. His chest was heavy, his breath drawn ragged. Now his four assailants stood relatively close together, hanging there before Dimitri in an awkward ensemble. Ingrid was still leaning on Sylvain for support, and Marianne was inching herself ahead ever so hesitantly, looking rather out of place for someone who had fought alongside them all for so long, though this did not deter her. A fifth obstruction also came back into view.

"Say something," Marianne spoke to the Professor, whose head was still down. Dimitri then realized why she did not act, why she was now remaining silent as her student body gathered -- she had seen his true face that day, the one that had been hiding away all this time, when he broke down in her arms inside the Imperial throne room. Before then he had liked to imagine that the cracks of his facade were never evident to anyone, that all the evenings spent isolated in the various chambers of the destroyed monastery weren't spent under the confines of drunken obscurity, that it never represented his fragmented and fading dreams of ever returning to a normal life after the war. That he felt nothing, even as he finally plunged the blade of his spear into Edelgard's heart. But afterwards the Professor had heard it in his voice and somehow understood that, as much as it broke her heart to watch him gradually retreat back into his bitter shell during the caravan ride home, she now had done all that she could. He didn't need her to look anymore.

She knew he was giving up.

_he held Rodrigue in his arms, watched as the lord's teeth became stained red with his seeping blood_

"I should have died," he mumbled. He felt it coming, and was driven by the urge to be honest with them one last time. "I thought I did. I wish that I had. It should have been me. Not Dedue." He looked at Marianne. "Not Annette." Now at Ingrid. "Not Petra, or Ignatz... no one deserves it but me."

He thought he saw it again.

_the fire in the sky_

"Stop this!" Marianne now begged of Dimitri.

He lifted the bottle once more. An adversarial hand appeared and stopped him. It grabbed the neck of the bottle and pulled, but Dimitri stubbornly held on with remarkable strength.

"It's not too late," Sylvain grunted.

"You can't..." Dimitri sputtered, but any further words were trapped behind a strangled wheeze. His eye met Sylvain's, but then it unfocused. Sylvain's expression shifted from confrontational anger to genuine shock in a matter of seconds, but the Professor felt and understood what was happening even before Dimitri hit the ground. He had finally pushed himself too far.

"NO! DIMITRI!"

She sprung into action. She moved in to meet Dimitri where he was collapsing, edging past a stunned Sylvain and a similarly-roused Ingrid.

Dimitri stared up at the cathedral ceiling. He had never realized before how beautifully juxtaposed the paintings were against the night sky. The sky itself looked astonishing, and welcoming. Not the way it did five years ago. He opened himself to it.

He felt someone's fingers running through his scalp. His worries ebbed away. This was it. He was ready to meet the sky, and its vividly-changing colors...

_It was a harrowing orange haze, and it was somehow getting darker, a pulsating kinetic knot that rendered him breathless. The clouds seemed to part for it, or maybe they were gathering en masse to harbor the storm? The longer Dimitri stared at it, the less it made sense. The battle was already raging outisde, beyond the temporary safety of Garreg Mach Monastery's walls. How long before they would get in? And why did the skies themselves seem to react to this anticipated arrival? Was this the power that Edelgard was truly capable of? This fire in the sky..._

_It reflected off Dimitri's eyes as he looked at it. It was the harbinger of a horrible fate for many, no doubt. There was nothing good about it. But as he stared at it and felt the emotional surge taking wind of his body, as he felt his fight-or-flight instinct demand to take control, the fire in the sky had the strangest calming sensation that acted upon his nerves with a steel reinforcement. It was death, but it was clear and it was present, and what else could you ask of it? The Officer's Academy was surely fractured, and even some of the monastery staff were already abandoning their posts. Ominous doom leered from the front, and cowardice loomed in the rear for those that lingered. Those who would be able to repel the incoming horrors of war would have to deal with the far greater burden of an irreparably-changed life. This must be it, he thought. This is the moment of our death... but with this acceptance came a sudden and simultaneous relief. If he were to die here in the monastery, his home, alongside the only true family he had ever known in life? Then so be it. It would be a fitting end for the last generation of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus._

_He was not afraid. He would not be afraid. He was in charge of his peers. He still had a responsibility to them._

_There was still time to rally._

_Beside him, Dedue's breathing became labored. He was trying to fortify one of the barricades on the entrance hall doors with what little materials remained at his expense. "We're going to be okay, your Highness," he was saying. "The defenses are going to hold. The defenses will hold..."_

_Dimitri's skybound trance wavered, and he instead looked down the monastery steps that led into the marketplace. A panic appeared to have broken out amongst the citizens and merchants who were gathering their belongings in their attempts to flee. As the fire in the sky burned closer and closer it was apparent that the front gate was no longer an option, but nobody knew where else to go. As the crowds dispensed themselves Dimitri took note of a shape that was huddled beside the now-vacant battalion guild, a small boy who had stopped whatever he was doing and was now crying. It was Cyril._

_"There's a boy alone down there," he said aloud, almost absent-mindedly. As he said this, he became acutely aware of other familiar faces down in the marketplace and around the adjoining fishing pond. From where he stood before the doors of the entrance hall he could make out the faces of Ingrid, Sylvain, Felix, and many others. In fact, quite a large amount of the Officer's Academy students had gathered downstairs. There was nothing vague about their state. As they ushered many of the civilians to safety, they were all that remained amongst the knights. They were the last line of defense._

_"What?" Dedue had given up trying to reinforce the barricades any further, and was now facing Dimitri with a look of grave concern._

_"I'm going to go help him," Dimitri told him. With his head, he gestured in the direction of the marketplace._

_"Your Highness?" Whether it was understood to whom Dimitri was referring, it did not matter. Dedue reached out a hand and grabbed the prince by his arm. Any pretense of the absence of fear was now gone from his voice. "Dimitri?" But when Dimitri's eyes met his, the resolve was understood and it was mutual. His grip loosened._

_"It's going to be okay, Dedue." Dimitri wasn't sure if he actually believed the words but he said them nonetheless, and he did not break his gaze with Dedue even as the gentle giant continued to hold his hand. They finally let go once several of the knights scrambled past, and Dimitri drifted slowly down the monastery stairs to accompany them._

_He turned to face the marketplace. What happened next seemed to be suspended forever in the motions of time, a transition of connections from one soul to the next. He stepped forward, a familiar face surrounding him no matter where he looked. He passed by Felix and Ferdinand von Aegir as they were distributing weapons and supplies to those who were staying behind. He saw an opportunity and fixed a pat of encouragement on Felix's back, but he was not sure that he could have felt it._

_He saw a citizen's prayer circle beside the foreign market consisting of Mercedes, Annette, and a tearful Marianne von Edmund. Annette was holding one of the monastery cats. As Marianne clasped her hands together tightly in a sorrowful lament, Dimitri stopped himself next to Mercedes and a single hand was found gently leaning upon her shoulder in comfort. She looked up to see him smiling down at her, his eyes expressing what words could not. Mercedes returned the smile and held one hand over his for a moment. She felt safe in that moment, and so he did too. They could both be at peace. They nodded to each other in solidarity. Dimitri let go and moved away._

_He saw Professor Hanneman leading a group of citizens from the confusion with soothing words, a small child on the crook of his arm, while Catherine and Petra were rallying the church soldiers beside the armory. Knights and students alike were putting on their armor and preparing their weapons. Sylvain was one such person, but he was struggling to tie his armor together adequately because of how badly his hands were shaking. Beside him, Ingrid and Leonie were too preoccupied with their own equipment to notice. He looked upwards in a dazed panic and caught sight of Dimitri. The young prince approached Sylvain and said the only thing he knew how to say at this point._

_"It's going to be okay."_

_Sylvain took a deep breath and found his resolve, but it was not enough for him to be able to speak through a jaw clenched by emotion. He gave Dimitri a stiff nod and a smile of genuine gratitude before returning the focus to his armor, which he now tied effortlessly. That would do. Dimitri moved on._

_He saw Bernadetta with her back against the blacksmith wall and a hand clutching at her chest. Ignatz was there, comforting her. She looked up at him and appeared to be telling him how fast her heart was beating, that she couldn't breathe, that it was all so scary. He held onto her free hand and wouldn't let go. Standing mere feet away from them was Linhardt and Caspar, who were arguing next to the guards at the front gate. From what Dimitri could gather, Caspar was refusing to back out of the fight and Linhardt was refusing to flee without him. In a final bid on his end of the argument, Linhardt took hold of Caspar in an uncharacteristically vibrant hug. He rested his head on Caspar's shoulder, and Caspar's hands clenched reflexively before he remembered how to return the gesture._

_The sky was growing darker._

_Dimitri turned from where he stood and realized that he was right next to the battalion guild. He looked down and saw Cyril underneath the market stand. The boy was still curled up there. Dimitri smiled faintly at him, and decided to risk a look through the gate before addressing him. What looked like pure chaos awaited anyone who went out there. The distant rumbling of the battle outside was getting louder. The fire in the sky was burning yet, and it was spreading fast overhead; Dimitri became inertly concerned that they were at all at risk of burning, themselves. At the epicenter of it the steady light of a powerful energy was breaking. It glinted off of his eyes and Dimitri felt himself becoming transfixed again, but he snapped out of it once Catherine appeared and ordered the front gate shut, ushering everyone within its proximity to step away. She too locked eyes with Dimitri as she gave her commands, and he nodded. No more hesitation._

_He wheeled back around, went forth and took a determined knee beside the panicked and frightened boy. What met Cyril were not eyes of judgment, but of empathy. Dimitri gave him another understanding smile. "This isn't your fight," he said simply, offering his hand. "Not today. Come, now. Go with them and live to fight another day."_

_Cyril reached out and took it._

_Dimitri pulled him forward and took him in his arms. He guided Cyril away from the marketplace and into the care of the fleeing Professor Manuela, who met him with a brief look of admiration and guilt before taking the boy. The pedestrian canals of the marketplace were becoming much less crowded now as the evacuation was nearing its close._

_A soft, frightened voice reached Dimitri's ear. "I can't find the Professor." It was Ashe. He was out of breath and looked as though he must have been searching every inch of the monastery grounds. He didn't have a single piece of equipment ready. He raised a valid concern; the Professor had gone down with the first wave of defense to meet the Empire on the battlefield, and she had not since returned. The look Ashe gave Dimitri was completely hopeless, but there was no time for a response, for the rest of the Blue Lion House had assembled by the front gate._

_He saw Ingrid and Sylvain, beautiful in their opaque knight's armor; both had worked hard to earn their own respective horses from the stable several months prior._

_He saw Dedue approaching, a single and freshly-picked violet in his hand; he must have just paid his patch in the greenhouse one last visit. He took the flower from Dedue without hesitation._

_He saw Ashe, in all of his loyalty and vulnerability; he was still standing there at attention, even though every instinct was clearly telling him to run away with the others._

_He saw Mercedes and Annette joining the group, bringing Marianne in tow; they would not leave their sister behind, as they had promised to protect her. Dimitri had accidentally witnessed this promise while searching for a book in the library, although none of them knew it at the time._

_He saw Ferdinand and Ignatz Victor, still assisting those stragglers left behind in the marketplace and beyond; the Professor had only recently recruited the two of them into his class for their potential, and Dimitri wished dearly that there had been more time for them to get to know everyone._

_He saw Felix, with his eyes closed in a moment of intense meditation; he could have sworn that Felix had always done this before facing a terrible match, but he had no way to prove it. He loved Felix all the more for his dedication._

_A deep rumbling shook them all. The sky reared a hatefully red blaze._

_They were here._

_Shouts of encouragement began to join the cascading soundwaves of invading fury, defiant chants and honorable student mottos for their respective Houses. Dimitri was compelled to add to them._

_"Blue Lions!" he called out, brandishing his lance. " Black Eagles, Golden Deer! Church of Seiros! I am proud to fight alongside each and every one of you!"_

_Everyone else readied their weapons to follow suit. A solid battalion of soldiers established itself along the walls of the marketplace. Dimitri risked one last aside glance and saw Dedue at the head of it as the shadows of the sky fell upon them. The violet glinted sadly from the lapel of Dimitri's coat._

_The gate burst forth, and they were immediately enveloped into whatever had been happening outside. A powerful gust of dark magic tore through the grounds, sending men and women tumbling backwards. Voices of steel chanted as blades were clumsily met in the ensuing confusion. Dimitri caught glimpse of a brilliant flash of light; a hooded figure was suddenly towering over him, but it was repelled by a blast of wind from Annette. The figure snarled and fled, uninjured. It didn't matter. All around him were barbed tournaments between friend and foe. Dimitri was reminded of the grand ball the monastery hosted only three months ago, this twisted dancing. He saw Ingrid deflecting a strike from an Imperial soldier, only to vanish into the sea of intruders entirely. Sylvain quickly followed as he parried two foes at once. Annette was shouting something that sounded like instructions to Dimitri but another flash of bright angry light and she was gone, too. He couldn't tell where it had come from. An explosion rocked the dormitories, and sharp projectiles began to rain upon them from above. He watched as Ashe was struck by an arrow and staggered into the shallows of the fishing pond, bits of stone and cloth flailing around him, his arm outstretched in a vain attempt to find support as he sunk into the frothy waters._

_Only Dedue stood beside him now. His eyes darted frantically. He swung his lance._

_The winds of war tore apart Garreg Mach Monastery in minutes. Flying beasts flung themselves at the cathedral towers. A torch sconce was knocked from the marketplace walls and started a fire. The blaze quickly spread across the ornamental banners above, and ignited the nearby barricades and merchant stands of the marketplace. Swords clashed with axes; light magic fused with dark; spears and arrows sailed. Another wave of battle and the fishing pond was completely out of sight. The relentless scuffle and the elements combined pushed the fight up the central stairs and into the entrance hall. Chaos reigned inside and out. Down the right corridor, Petra was smashing the locks to each of the stables in an attempt to spare the horses; they tore past her in a frenzied hurry, nearly knocking her down. Somewhere else a statue toppled, its contents spilling upon an unsuspecting crowd of plunderers. The fires crept up behind everything and everyone as the foreign market burned. The halls sang with cascading cries of aggression and anguish. Stained glass windows were knocked from their frames and idly stomped upon by dueling pairs of armor-plated boots. Soldiers and students fell in droves, the stench of foul death soon dominating all other senses. Felix struggled to release the hilt of his blade from the abdomen of a feebly protesting enemy, and Mercedes was crawling on the floor toward a crumpled and beaten body before an unseen force appeared to drag them both away, and another awful spell roared its fierce tune in the distilled air._

_Something new stirred. A thundering shriek of rage cracked the fire in the sky into a million pieces. The walls of the dining hall exploded; stone and debris were flung in a gathering whirlwind. A great shape burst from within the monastery's cathedral and tore across its sacred grounds into the battlefield beyond; it appeared to be attacking the Imperial army. The whirlwind intensified and buildings started utterly breaking down. Dimitri lost his footing to this tremendous power and he fell. He had enough time to look back up and watch as Dedue was swept away. The darkness then swallowed everyone. Soon it took away all sight, but he squeezed his eyes shut regardless. He was being spun in a tapestry of nightmares. He could still hear the horrible grindings of mortality as it continued clashing against itself somewhere above him. That languid noise. He could sense that Fódlan was imploding at its very core. Muffled voices attempted to reach him. He could taste iron, blood, and dirt. He tasted the world and its elements; he felt himself take flight, but then water flushed over him; liquid filled his lungs and the air then left him. He was cradled into a weightless stupor. A horrific pain stretched itself across his face as it was knocked back and forth. He felt himself becoming weary, transformed._

_He tried to open his eyes, but he couldn't._

"Get something under his head!" Ingrid was screaming. "Somebody find a physician!"

He twitched in the Professor's arms, his muscles convulsing wildly. His eye had rolled up until only red and white were showing. Loose spittle collected on the corner of his mouth. Faint candlelight stirred; more footsteps now. Dimitri's last audience had finally gathered for him.

"Is he breathing?!" someone cried. The Professor thought it sounded like Ashe, but she could not look away. He must have been the one who thought to ignite the nearby candlesticks.

"What's going on?" It was Mercedes. She and Ferdinand had been drawn inside by the noise, along with some other indistinguishable monastery guests; her own eyes widened when they laid themselves upon him and immediately understood. "What's happeni... Dimitri? DIMITRI!!"

The Professor found herself caught next in this strange vortex of smooth time as it brought itself to the present day, and all movement appeared to mirror Dimitri's lowering heart rate. Ingrid knelt down beside them both. She was yelling something else now but the Professor could not hear. Streaks of her long, golden hair brushed against the Professor's face. They were banded together in front of Sylvain, who was now trying to cushion Dimitri's head with his bundled overcoat. Behind them, Mercedes buckled against the weight of Ashe and Marianne as they held her back and she too lost control, desperately yelling her pleas for him to wake up. Ferdinand stood at length to prevent anyone else in the growing crowd from adding to the confusion, but he too could only watch with pained helplessness as their leader writhed on the cathedral floor, slowly leaving them all behind.

Somewhere a hole formed in this delirious mass of concerned subjects, and Mercedes stretched her entire arm through it in a agonized attempt to find their King. The rings on her fingers gleamed in the combined light of the candles and the moon, which was still radiating through the holes in the ceiling quite beautifully in spite of the scene on display beneath it.

_Bruised and weary, Mercedes reached out into the cold grey haze that now hung over the ruins of everything, her fingers unfocused. She was twitching and sobbing. She was covered in Annette's blood. Mercedes had grabbed onto her in a tight hug and now sat upright in an attempt to revive her best friend, but the life had long left Annette's body. They lay together in the smoldering foundations of their former dormitory._

_Dedue trembled on the ground next to Sylvain, who was also breathing but unconscious. The sun peaked through a hole in the wall, illuminating Dedue's wounded head as it rested against his comrade. It dispersed some of the white mist that lingered, but it was not enough for clarity._

_Felix stood nearby, staring upon the collective rubble of the upper monastery ground in disbelief from what remained of the dining hall terrace. The fishing pond rippled briefly below, but the gentle caress of water against stone did not reach his ears._

_Ferdinand fell against the ruins of the greenhouse. He was wildly clutching himself, still in shock and under the belief that he had perished. He gave up his spastic attempts to stand and suppressed his rapid breathing through gritted teeth, fragments of shattered glass further splintering beneath his weight._

_Ingrid was among the few searching the wreckage of the still-burning marketplace stalls. She had found Ignatz laying nearby and had been unable to continue. She crouched down beside him, holding what looked like a bundled scroll of paper from his pocket in her hands._

_Much of the fire was now isolated and dimming, but it was failing to combat the deathly haze. Survivors from other Houses like Petra were also nearby, but none of them seemed to be aware of each other in this dismal existence, nor of anything for that matter. But Dimitri emerged from the fog, hoisting himself out of the shallows of the fishing pond with a bundled heap in his arms. It was Ashe. He wasn't moving, and the arrow stuck out of him like the missing piece to a terrible puzzle elsewhere._

_The violet on Dimitri's lapel had an angelic purple hue that contrasted everything around him as he lifted his friend out of the water. It seemed to guide him, revealing to him what no one else could see: they were all there, his student body, separated, fragmented. But he needed them. He needed his House. They were so close, yet so far; in all this defeat, shame, and ruin, they simply just couldn't be gone from existence. He could still see them, but they were floating away._

_He could see himself losing them. They needed to live. He looked down. Ashe could be saved. They could do it together, if only he could get their heads to turn. The Blue Lion needed to roar._

_He opened his mouth and called out to them._

In their current position, the group within the ruined cathedral formed a tragic parallel to this memory.

Sylvain kicked himself away, no longer able to stifle his sobs. Ashe immediately fell to his side. A series of traumatically repellent gurgles had begun straining to release themselves from Dimitri's slack-jawed face. He was choking. His fingers flexed; Mercedes was holding onto his hand but accidentally let go of it in shock. Ferdinand held Marianne, as she could no longer bear to witness.

Ingrid and the Professor lingered somewhere above him. Fading.

"No! NO!"

_At the sound of Dimitri's voice, the reality of the monastery grounds began to return through the fog. The light became clearer. Felix was coming toward them down the stairs, his usual stoicism crashing with each step. Ferdinand, hearing the voice and heeding its call, composed himself as he stood shakily on his feet. He realized that he had been miraculously unharmed._

_As Dedue was supporting an awake and hobbled Sylvain out of the entrance hall, Petra approached Ingrid and reached out to her with watery eyes. Ingrid saw the kindness in them, and returned it. They embraced. Ingrid could no longer hold it in and she wept. She wept for Ignatz and for the other dead that currently surrounded them. She wept for the Church and for what was left of the monastery. She wept for Petra: another friend, another survivor. Another future casualty of another pointless battle._

"You can't die! You can't!"

_Marianne had appeared beside Mercedes, and lifted her up so that they could move away from where Annette's body lay. The gratitude that now flushed Mercedes' eyes was an image that Marianne would never forget. Gathering a second wind, Sylvain excused himself so that Dedue could go help them instead. The splintered groups of survivors then began to converge on each other._

"Dimitri!!"

_Felix had locked Dimitri and Ashe both into a hug. His exhausted breath hit Dimitri's neck in heated waves. They were soon joined by Ferdinand and Sylvain. They huddled together, there in limbo, a perfect tableau of friendship. Dimitri looked up and it dawned on him that there were now comrades on all sides, in lieu of the destruction. He saw Ingrid and Petra being reborn from the ashes of the marketplace; Dedue and Marianne were supporting Mercedes as they too arrived from a previously hellish landscape. He considered Ashe, a broken bird in his arms, whose eyes had still not yet opened._

_As Felix released them, Dimitri knew that they both understood the next step. If they acted quickly, they could accomplish it. Somewhere in the ruins there would be more survivors, and intact medical supplies. They needed to push forward. They would find something._

_Dimitri took the first step, and they all walked toward the light together._

The Professor flung herself on top of Dimitri now, gaining enough of a level footing and frantically trying to resuscitate him with her hands on his chest. His seizure had ended, and he lay still and flat. Long abandoning the posture of authority, the Professor gave in to what had been nurturing inside a once-phantom heart ever since she had first laid eyes on him. She bent lower, certain that he would hear her.

"Your people need their King!" she yelled.

_He was suddenly alone in a long white tunnel. He continued walking. Surely help would be there soon. He needed to find someone. Ahead there was a indistinct shape, a blot of ink on the pale horizon._

"Your people need you! I need you!"

_He kept moving. He couldn't stop. More shapes now. They took to life on either side of him._

The Professor pressed her lips against his, breathed her life into his.

_They weren't shapes. They were people._ _King Lambert was smiling down at his son with woeful eyes. Beside him stood Lord Rodrigue._

"Dimitri..."

_He next saw Edelgard, but it wasn't the woman he had grown to hate over the last five years. What stood before him was a beautiful young girl with brown hair, wearing casual noble dress instead of the familiar robes and armor of the Flame Emperor. She had her hand extended, the echo of a previous offer to dance passing right through her. But he was already moving ahead._

_At the end of the tunnel, another welcoming figure waited for him._

"Dimitri!!"

_He met Dedue there, his composure breaking. His young face becoming shrouded by this essence of life, or something quite like it. His vassal, his best friend, reached out to him. He moved as if to accept this familiar offer, but he couldn't bring himself to follow through. Something was holding him back, some exterior, dreamlike escort that was now telling him this wasn't permanent..._

_As Dimitri lowered his uneasy hand, the older Dedue lowered his in rhythm. He didn't frown. On the contrary, his worn and battered face broke out into a hearty smile. Go to her, it said._

"DIMITRI!!!"

_Dimitri swiveled on the spot in response to this piercing call, shattering the curtain of any prior illusions held over him. He was no longer the image of a student in the Officer's Academy. A sudden veil of unkempt hair prevented him from seeing clearly, but one eye stared out toward the source of the noise, narrowing. Pleading._

_A suffocating cough filled his throat._

The moon and the exploding roof of the cathedral with all the stars of the night sky blending in returned to Dimitri as he launched forward, drawing in a long and exerted gasp for air, but the pain and the overwhelming superfluous motion of his senses returning were all secondary to the sight of his beloved Professor and the way her arms instinctively raced to meet him, and to the brightness of her eyes as they again captured him there, on Fódlan's floor and back from the brink of death's pale haze, without judgment or scorn but with what was always there: the purity of her love and her unerring guidance...

He began to laugh, an impulse made difficult by the recent lack of oxygen circulating through his body, but it poured out of him as honest and as pure as it had ever been five years prior; it flowed through the hearts of all in the room with a magic none had ever felt before and could not describe, and it rang down the halls of the cathedral and out onto the bridge and it grew louder and louder still. It did not ring alone for long.

"I'm alive," Dimitri croaked out as the Professor held him, as Mercedes and Ingrid and countless others crumpled down next to them, as Sylvain and Ashe appeared from behind and he could hear and smell them as they tried to hold him too, he could hear all of them laughing and crying as Marianne and Ferdinand completed the circle by falling nearly on top of them, and as Dimitri laid himself back down against the cool stone of the cathedral floor, depleting his lungs with laughter still until they could finally rest, the Professor and their students went down with him and they embraced each other and the wonders of the sky and the moonlight together under a new light. "I'm alive. I'm alive."

Somewhere in the bodily entanglement of rejuvenating souls and spirits Dimitri's hand found itself removing the eyepatch from his head and lifting his face upward, letting the warm and gentle light wash over his wounds from the specters of the past.


End file.
